Our Version of Craft Heaven: Swap, Sew, Screen, Repeat

By coreylynne, Oct 10, 2011

For me, it’s like being a kid in a candy store— In room 1 are sewing machines all lined up in neat rows; shiny new scissors, spools of thread and heaps of fabric. Peek into room 2 and see long tables covered in crisp paper, silk screens, and brightly hued tubs of ink ready to be opened. It’s Christmas morning, first day of school, that sweet anticipation.

If you like to craft you will likely spend a good chunk of your day in the Swap-O-Rama-Rama* with us.

In the Sewing Room ALL DAY:

Clothing Swap—Donate your old adult or kid clothes; Come pick through our piles of available freebies—hack them, mod them, print on them, cut ‘em up and use them for some other project. This is the spirit of the Swap!

No Sewing Necessary:
▪ Make a Cape—be a superhero, a bat, a wizard, a princess, whatever…Halloween is right around the corner folks;
▪ Make a Tutu/Mermaid Seaweed Skirt/Hawaiian Hula Skirt without touching a needle and thread;
▪ Mod your T-shirt –you can make those fringed, beaded shirts all the cool kids are sporting; use scissors, fabric pens, glue on some bling, add beads and more.

Some Sewing Required:
“Little pocket monsters” with brilliant artist Meredith MacLeod. She’ll help get you started and supervise some machine and hand-sewing monster making. Go as simple or elaborate as you want; and if you feel the need to adopt or a Monster of hers, you may be in luck.

For More Sewing: We have sewing machines for you to use, with experienced sewers on hand to help troubleshoot, teach and inspire. Take full advantage. And if you want to really get your game on—stick around and maybe we’ll have a catwalk in the afternoon so you can strut in your new threads!

Screen Printing Room

Idiot or GeniusThese Portland based artists are designing a special one-off poster for our event! You can come and print the final color layer on the poster and take one home with you! They’ll also have their own work to show and sell, and can help you print on almost anything;

Rock, Paper Scissors Collective If you don’t know your hometown RPS from Art Murmur or from their admirable outreach work with teens, you should. These returning artists are coming with a cool new batch of silkscreens, as well as some of their member-crafted zines, shirts and paperie to sell.

Park Day Screening Zone Add some cool, original graphics to any fabric, paper or clothes you find in your visit—or even the shirt or hoodie off your back.